Dialect Awareness in Reeve's Tale Throughout every period of human history, language has been the highest expression of observable and transmissible culture. Individuals generally affiliate with people of similar culture and characteristics and tend to avoid those who express qualities and beliefs different from what is commonly accepted or familiar. Wedges are often driven between identical groups of people with common beliefs, simply because a particular dialect of their language is strange to another group's ears, or is difficult for that other group to understand. The differences between the Northern and Southern Middle English dialects of the late 1300s were, for many good reasons, so stark that over time dividing lines were conceived, as were stereotypical views of the people who spoke the Northern language. But the 14th-century poet Geoffrey Chaucer saw beyond the divide and got to the heart of the matter; he recognized the effectiveness and validity of the Northern dialects, regarding them as forms of English no less adequate than his native "London" – a mixture of South and East Midlands dialects. It is by capitalizing on these well-known stereotypical views through his distinct dialectal differences that Chaucer helps Oswald the Reeve gain an advantage over the impertinent Miller through his satirical and knowing Canterbury Tale. To understand the implications that dialect differences would have had on According to the southern view of a northern speaker of Middle English, one must first investigate the individual differences that clearly existed between the two forms of the language. Since there was no standardization of the... center of the paper... frey. The Canterbury Tales: nine tales and the general prologue.Ed. VA Kolve and Glending Olson. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.Clark, Cecily. "Another case of late 14th century dialect awareness." Review of English Studies 40 (1989): 504-505. Ellis, Deborah S. "Chaucer's Devilish Reeve." Chaucer Review 27 (1995): 150-161. Geipel, John. The Viking Legacy: Scandinavian Influence on the English and Gaelic Languages. London: David & Charles, 1971. Hughes, Arthur and Peter Trudgill. English accents and dialects: an introduction to the social and regional varieties of British English. Baltimore:University Park P, 1979.Mossé, Fernand. "Introduction." A Middle English textbook. Trans. James A. Walker. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1952.Woods, William F. "The Logic of Deprivation in The Reeve's Tale." Review of Chaucer 30 (1996) : 150-161.